Concert tech strikes chord with $37M VC round

Wed, 30 Apr 2008 06:59:56 -0400

Even before its first compound hits the clinic, Concert Pharmaceuticals is having no trouble raising venture funds. The Lexington, MA-based developer has just ginned $37 million in a new venture round, bringing its total haul to a whopping $95 million.

Investors appear quite taken with Concert's technology: replacing ordinary hydrogen atoms founds in therapies with deuterium, a heavy form of hydrogen. Using hydrogen with double the mass should make a range of drugs safer and more effective--giving Concert a wide field to play in.

Concert's lead therapy is CTP-347, which goes into the clinic later this year to study its effect on hot flashes. Brookside Capital Partners Fund LP, Flagship Ventures, Greylock Partners, Adage Capital Management LP, and Westfield Capital Management all participated in this latest round.

- see Concert's release
- read the report in the Boston Globe

ALSO: Germany's Apogenix has raised €27.5 million in its second round of financing. The company is developing new therapies involving programmed cell death. The new money extends their runway into 2010, when the biotech expects to obtain proof of concept data on its lead therapy. Release